Saturday, 5 May 2012

Le Havre

Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the
Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on
the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel.

The setting for Lowry's short story 'In Le Havre'. It was where Jan Gabrial embarked on the S.S. Ile De Franceto return to America
in April 1934. She was seen off by Lowry; "I wandered around Havre, &
it was nice - although so sad without you; we would have had real fun there,
there was so many nice little cafes down by the waterfront, something like
French West Indies, a real salt of the sea feeling it gave you, but I have never
hated the sea so much. I ran after the Ile de France till it was out of
sight..." (Collected Letters Vol. 1 Pg. 142).

We can assume that Jan Gabrial and Lowry travelled by the boat train to Le Havre form Paris.

Lowry wrote in a letter to Jan dated April 1934; "I wandered around Havre, & it was nice - although so sad without you; we would have had real fun there, there were so many nice little cafes down by the waterfront, something like the French West Indies, a real salt of the sea feeling it gave you: but I never hated the sea so much. I ran after the Ile de France till it was out of sight, I had half a hope I might be able to stop it or make it come back.."

Lowry may have returned from La Gare as seen below.

You can watch below a travelogue produced by Compagnie Générale Transatlantique from 1938 of towns and historic sites along the French Normandy coast. Extensive footage of the port town of Le Havre (which would be heavily bombed during WWII) with ocean liners arriving to the port, vistas of the city, and 1930s old European street scenes. Resort towns such as Etretat, with village street scenes, people relaxing on the beach, and vistas of naturally carved cliffs:

Port of Shadows (French: Le Quai des brumes) is a 1938 French film directed by Marcel Carné is set in Le Havre with plenty of atmospheric shots of the port. It stars Jean Gabin, Michel Simon and Michèle Morgan. The screenplay was written by Jacques Prévert based on a novel by Pierre Mac Orlan. You can see a trailer here:

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

Gutted Arcades of the Past

Gutted Arcades of the Past is an on-going project to create an encyclopaedia of Malcolm Lowry’s early life and work from 1909 to 1934. The cut off date of 1934 was chosen as a symbolic one reflecting his rejection of Europe for the New World beginning with his voyage to New York in that year aboard the R.M.S.Aquitania.